unselfish sewing

hey there, handsome...

we just came back from a long weekend on the east coast where we attended a friends wedding in long island, ny.

but let's flash back to the sunday before our thursday flight, shall we?? there i am, contemplating what to wear - my birthday dress? my bombshell dress? do i try and make something new?? do i wear one of the few rtw dresses i own? hmm hmm hmmmmm. decisions decisions decisions. (i ended up with my ikat dress - packs well and is oh so accommodating to buffets...)

i'm roused from my self-absorption for just long enough to realize that my husband is staring into the portents of his side of the closet (which curiously keeps getting smaller and smaller... weird...) with a furrowed brow. i ask him what he's going to wear. he responds that he's thinking of wearing a short sleeve collared shirt i made him last year (never blogged) with a tie. hmmm....

readers, i'm not a big fan of fashion rules, and i am definitely no expert in men's dressing, but i just wasn't convinced that a short sleeve shirt and a tie was appropriate for an evening wedding. turns out my husband wasn't totally convinced either.

and that was how i convinced him to take me fabric shopping.

i realized it was high time i sent a little sewing love to my biggest supporter, and my all around favorite person. it didn't hurt that his birthday was last week either!

with truly record speed (if i do say so myself) i whipped out this modified long sleeve negroni. i bought the negroni pattern last year when i made a short sleeve shirt for nick's (my husband) birthday. i knew that the convertible camp collar style of the negroni wouldn't suit him for, but i felt like i needed the hand-holding that colette patterns is so good at.  so using peter's excellent tutorial i made the necessary changes to the negroni pattern to give it a button placket front, collar stand and regular collar.

the fabric was some unmarked checked stuff that was wonderfully light weight, soft and mysteriously resistant to wrinkles. while pressing the seams i got a whiff of that tell-tale 70's basement smell that told my that there was some polyester lurking in those fibers. but my husband doesn't mind - and really, for a cotton/poly blend (my guess) its pretty darn breathable.

i'm not going to say that its the finest example of men's shirt sewing. there's some awkward turns and pivots and a curiously "off" cuff (but just the underside, so no one sees it). i also made one of those spectacularly idiotic blunders that only i can make when sewing to a deadline - after attaching the collar stand and collar and topstitching the whole thing to boot, i realized that i was sewing the shirt inside-out! at some point - perhaps when attaching the back yolk - i got myself all turned around and the plackets were on the inside of the shirt! head slap!! there was much unpicking of tiny stitches. and cursing. lots and lots of cursing.

but i do feel that next time i do it - without the pressure of a deadline - it will (hopefully) go smoother. and nick likes it. and thats what matters most.

i love you, nick. happy birthday.

xx